


perpetual motion of the second kind

by penhaligon



Series: Watcher Kit [15]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:12:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28708722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon
Summary: After the White Void, Ydwin has some questions.
Relationships: The Watcher & Ydwin (Pillars of Eternity), The Watcher/Ydwin (Pillars of Eternity)
Series: Watcher Kit [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1271783
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	perpetual motion of the second kind

The White Void had a cold to it that even a theoretically dead Glamfellen could feel, but Ydwin's limbs were stiff with more than that. The icy winds howled and moaned, a scraping ache in head and ears, and Ydwin wondered, with a sluggish curiosity, if the sensation was physical or merely an interpretation applied by the mind to the entropic pull of the Void upon the soul. But she couldn't hold on to the thought long enough to give it proper consideration. It was as if the winds snatched it away, as if the bitter cold left no room for theory or observation. As if the very threads of her thoughts were succumbing to the slow crawl of frost.

The frigid voice of the Beast of Winter, low and crackling like the snap of ice, resonated through the deep fabric of the place, engulfing even more of Ydwin's head space. She gritted her teeth. Others flinched, some took a step back.

Kit drew herself up and tucked the empty phylactery under her arm, her eyes never leaving the Beast.

 _I cannot permit a soul that has felt the chill of the White Void to leave this plane,_ Rymrgand said, and Ydwin felt the words like a numb blow to frozen skin. Her eyes moved to Kit, then the others. _But I would strike a compromise. You may return to the mortal realm in recompense for what you have done._ The Beast's many eyes gleamed down at them, a cold, pale, sickly blue. _But within you will bide my chime. And when you die, your soul will enter the White Void._

Vatnir's jaw had gone slack, an entire row of teeth visible. Xoti's eyes flicked nervously between Kit and the Beast, questioning and unsure. Aloth scowled, hand settling on his grimoire. Edér frowned, his gaze moving to Kit and staying there, waiting.

Kit stared at Rymrgand impassively for a moment, then smiled, a jagged-edge thing. "Really?" she asked, and for some reason, it made a touch of the unbearable stiffness in Ydwin's body relax. As if a warmth radiated from Kit that not even the Void could overcome. "That's the _only_ choice? After I was kind enough to give you the time of day?"

Rymrgand's sudden irritation shuddered through the air of the Void, a tremendous shiver like bare skin meeting cold. _This realm is governed by immutable laws,_ the Beast said, _and I will not bend them to suit you._

"Oh, I know about those laws," Kit said. It was a smile that wasn't at all friendly, a look of teeth bared and violence promised. It reminded Ydwin of Neriscyrlas, then and there, and she recalled how Kit had earnestly tried to get the dragon to return to the world of living in a lesser form, to no avail. Something important lay beyond the thought, too, but Ydwin burned with cold and sapped strength, and following the trail was difficult. "You wanted me to learn something, didn't you? I think I picked up the wrong lesson."

Perhaps it was the nature of the Void, and its inimical effect upon Ydwin's thoughts, but she couldn't guess what passed silently between the Watcher and Rymrgand, then. A growl reverberated, made the ice beneath them shiver and groan. _You seek to take a soul from a Void,_ the Beast rumbled, with as much threat as Kit's smile promised. _Did you think that I would not notice?_

Kit's shoulders straightened and squared, as if to put herself physically between the Beast of Winter and the train of souls that trailed in her wake. As of late, Ydwin had wondered about that a great deal -- about the lengths to which Kit would go for those to whom she owed no favor or connection. For the dead, even.

 _Do you think I hold no power over my offspring?_ the Beast continued, and Vatnir flinched again. Out of the corner of her eye, Ydwin saw Xoti jerk as if she was going to step forward and interject, but Edér put himself in front of her, shaking his head. _Do you think I could not take that shambling half-dead thing at your side, if I wished?_

With a start, Ydwin realized to whom Rymrgand was referring, when Kit's eyes snapped to Vatnir and then to Ydwin and then back to the Beast, something very dark in her gaze.

 _Do not try my patience, Watcher,_ the Beast rumbled, glaring down at Kit. _And take what mercy you are offered._

Kit's expression didn't waver, but there was less caustic disregard in her face, and more anger. She stepped forward, resolute, like the towering, rotting form of the Beast did not frighten her, like it didn't matter that he'd set his beady eyes on her soul. Ydwin would have tried to intervene, to pull her aside, had the effort of moving her lips and limbs been less than monumental.

"Some advice for the future," Kit said, hard. "You can't bluff with me."

Then she raised a hand and snapped her fingers, a surge of energy and essence leaping forward with the motion, instant and immediate with no physical space to chart through first. And with a roar of surprise and fury, the Beast of Winter was engulfed in flames.

* * *

Ydwin knew that the Void had addled her brain, when they were safely ensconced within _The Defiant_ later and she could make no sense of what had occurred. Not fighting the Beast of Winter to a standstill, not the fact that Kit had seen fit to challenge him in the first place, not the rumbling, delighted laughter that had followed after it seemed like both the Watcher and the god of entropy had exhausted the anger driving them so viciously at each other.

They had left the Vytmádh no worse for the wear, except that Kit's hands were hideously reddened and well on their way to turning worse colors. Her physical body had apparently clung to the Eye of Rymrgand the entire time their souls had been in the Void. Xoti had taken care of the frostbite at once, but Kit had hardly seemed to notice any pain or discomfort. She'd smiled at something that no one else appeared to understand, her eyes and thoughts far away, and Ydwin wasn't the only one in no mental state to start asking questions.

The Void had an effect on them all, it seemed.

But the more distance _The Defiant_ put between them and that wretched iceberg, the more Ydwin felt like herself. And with the return of ordered faculties came indignation.

What had Kit been _thinking_?

Ydwin found Kit in the captain's cabin -- or rather, she found a cabin that appeared empty at first glance, but the bright signature of Kit's soul and thoughts was readily apparent, and Ydwin heard rustling and scratching, at the far side of the bed. Kit muttered something that sounded like, "Come on," and a hiss answered her, to which Kit responded with an aggrieved sigh.

Her head appeared over the top of the bed. "Hang on just a second," Kit said to Ydwin, apologetic, before disappearing once more.

More scratching, like claws against wood, and then: "Come _here_ , you little shit."

Finally, Kit emerged from underneath the bed with the creature in question, and despite all previous resistance, the cat now curled contentedly in her arms, its little game completed. It was nothing pleasant to look at, and likely unpleasant to touch, its skin rotting in places and the rest stretched into a starved kind of thin that one saw on street animals who were not quite dead yet. But the frustration with which Kit glared down at the cat was overwhelmingly fond, a thumb rubbing behind the creature's ear as she turned attentive gaze and thoughts back to Ydwin.

 _Such love for a dead thing,_ Ydwin thought.

 _This one survived,_ Kit had told her once, when Ydwin had inquired after her undead cat. Kit's voice had been smaller than Ydwin was accustomed to, and so Ydwin hadn't inquired any further.

"Is something wrong?" Kit asked, her voice softening and her eyes searching in concern, and it was only then that Ydwin remembered that she was supposed to be upset.

In response, Ydwin folded her arms and scowled. "What did you hope to achieve?"

Kit blinked at her. The cat didn't blink, but it turned its luminous eyes on Ydwin, somewhere between interest and suspicion. "I'm going to need specifics."

Of course. It was never just one questionable decision that the Watcher had made. "What did you hope to achieve by _attacking_ the Beast of Winter?" Ydwin demanded. "In his own realm, no less! Did you have some hope that you could push past him and win our freedom?"

Kit's eyes widened slightly, before a small smile settled on her face, a step away from smug. "I mean," she said, "I _did_." She shook her head, pensive consideration settling in, radiating outward from the distractingly inviting thoughts she left swirling at the surface of her mind. "He couldn't keep us there, no matter how badly he wanted to."

She said it so certainly, for all that they never worked with anything less than total uncertainty, on most days. "And you _knew_ that?" Ydwin asked.

"I wasn't sure until he got pissy," Kit said, and she huffed out a laugh. The cat in her arms squirmed, but she kept a tight hold on it. "And _then_ I knew. What Neriscyrlas said, about not being able to escape the pull of that place? It wasn't just the Void's pull, it was the Beyond." A shine entered Kit's eyes, as the whispered curve of her thoughts turned inward, contemplative. "Why do you think Rymrgand couldn't dig her out himself? She'd attached herself to a physical object, something resistant to the Beyond. And she couldn't get out because she had no physical counterpart here, and her phylactery was stuck there."

It wasn't just that bodies housed souls. It was that they exerted a stronger pull than the Beyond, theoretically, at least until they gave out. Ydwin knew the principle. And yet she'd lost hold of it, somewhere in the Void, in the cold.

"Rymrgand is subject to the same _immutable laws._ " Kit spit the words out mockingly. "And our bodies were safe in the Vytmádh as long as we had that." She pointed to the Eye of Rymrgand resting on her desk and then immediately latched the arm back around the cat, as it made another valiant attempt at escape. "He was talking a load of bullshit and trying to scare us into submitting. That was all it was."

Ydwin's eyes traced the not-quite-rotted contours of the cat's skinny body. "And you gambled on that," she murmured. "On a hunch."

"On the theory," Kit said. "It's always been sound."

It was, Ydwin supposed, entirely logical. There had never been a way to empirically prove, beyond doubt, that physical bodies provided the stronger anchor against the Beyond, but she had bet on something similar, on her body being able to retain her soul no matter how she experimented with it, short of anything save death. She didn't know why the revelation of Kit's reasoning was a surprise. Ydwin should have known better. She _would_ have known better, had the Void not left her in such a rattled state, had the Watcher not been a continuous unfolding surprise.

Then again, considering Kit's attitude towards all forms of authority, perhaps it was not such a surprise after all. "Why did you attack him, then?" Ydwin asked.

All traces of levity evaporated from the swirling of Kit's thoughts. "I needed to take his attention off of you," she said. "And Vatnir, but I don't think he wanted Vatnir in same way. Not yet." A troubled furrow appeared between her eyes. "That's a long-term problem."

The implications of that arrived slow and methodical, ringing as hollowly between Ydwin's ears as the winds of the Void had. "Then what he said was not a bluff," she murmured.

"I wasn't sure," Kit said, unhappy now. "Your soul is... different. I wasn't sure if your body would be able to hang on to it, if he started trying to freeze you out in the Here." She tried to wave a hand in the direction of the Eye again, though she was hampered by her hold on the cat, and Ydwin followed the gesture in the way that Kit's thoughts turned. The Eye glittered innocuously on the desk. "He was _trying_ to get past me, but he gave it up pretty fast. He just wanted to scare me into signing myself over to him, and I made sure he realized that he'd have another Neriscyrlas on his hands if he kept pissing me off."

The phylactery was on the desk next to the Eye, and Ydwin could easily imagine how much damage Kit could do with it, had she remained in the Void and dedicated herself to being a thorn in Rymrgand's side. She understood, then, why the god had summarily kicked them out after all. Why the phylactery had come with them, and why the Vytmádh had sealed itself up immediately. Even though they didn't yet understand the _how_ behind the phylactery's appearance in the Here.

Ydwin considered the frostbite in Kit's hands, and the fact that Rymrgand had tried to cow Kit into submission by threatening _Ydwin_. The fact that Kit had not hesitated to throw herself at him with the fury of an inferno. "And you risked being frozen solid?" Ydwin asked. Kit's hands had been a sickening, spreading, swollen reddish-black -- the price of holding back a small sliver of a god. "For that?"

Kit frowned. "For you, yeah," she said, like it was the most obvious fact in the world. Words froze in Ydwin's throat and were slow to thaw, and while they did, Kit gave her a keen-eyed glance, the edges of her thoughts just shy of probing. "And you're mad at me about it because?"

Once again, Ydwin found it difficult to bring her thoughts to order, but she couldn't blame the Void this time, unless it had left her with some lingering chill. She'd expected Kit to act in the manner that Ydwin had become accustomed to, as they made their thorny way across the archipelago. The Watcher had more conversations with gods than any kith that Ydwin could name, after all.

"I'd assumed you'd negotiate," Ydwin said, "rather than risk the Beast's wrath. I..." her breath caught like the advent of an oncoming cold, though she'd long since ceased experiencing such things, "dreaded that he'd try to keep you there afterwards." She hurried along, words as ungainly as they'd been in the Void. "It was still a foolish risk, no matter how sound the theory."

"You're one to talk," Kit said, suddenly all too interested in the minutiae of the disgruntled cat in her arms, but her eyes soon flicked back up, studying, wondering. Her curiosity was a boundless tide at the surface of her thoughts, held back by a firm hand. "And after all of that," Kit ventured, a little slower, "you still agree with him?"

Ydwin let loose a sigh that rattled about hollowly in her chest. "Rymrgand is... unpleasant," she said. "He possesses an unearned amount of grandiosity and ego. But," Ydwin drew herself up and only noticed after the fact, as she found herself straightening her glasses, "he is not wrong."

"No," Kit agreed easily, and Ydwin blinked at her. " _All life ends in stillness._ Still, it's not like he has any _actual_ perspective." Kit scoffed. "Two thousand years is nothing."

Ydwin wondered if Kit realized how she sounded, sometimes. A few steps removed from the rest of the mortal world, and never quite a good fit, when she attempted to blend in. Still, Ydwin was much the same, and perhaps that was why Kit's presence was so oddly comfortable.

But an unfortunate result of leaving herself a little less closed off in such a presence, Ydwin thought, was that Kit could all too easily sniff out the root of the matter and find traces of it in Ydwin's thoughts. Kit's gaze remained searching, her mind focused and turning like an endless recursive loop of curiosity, at the edges where she let Ydwin feel its overflow. "You hated it there."

Ydwin stopped herself from adjusting her glasses again. There was something to be said for Kit's worry that Ydwin's soul would not have been able to remain within her body. For all that the others had maintained a never-ending stream of complaints about the cold, she didn't believe they'd _felt_ it like she had, felt it sink down beyond the shell of essence, felt it make thoughts and self slow and heavy and shrinking. Save perhaps for Vatnir, faced at last with the thing he'd preached without understanding or belief. "It is the end I've created for myself," Ydwin said, and her tongue felt thick and bitter in her mouth. "It isn't meant to inspire _warm_ feelings."

Kit's face grew serious, then, caught up in some twist and turn of thought, and the cat took the opportunity to make use of the distraction and make an escape at last. It leapt out of Kit's arms and scrambled away with a triumphant yowl, and Kit nearly tipped over in a reflexive attempt to snatch it back. Her efforts were unsuccessful, however, and she didn't pursue the creature again. She steadied herself and straightened, half-heartedly annoyed, and when her thoughts returned to their scrutiny, her gaze following, Ydwin found herself pinned beneath that attention. "Do you know that?"

Ydwin frowned. "Pardon?"

"Do you _know_ that?" Kit stressed. "I mean, in all of your research, have you ever come across an account of someone like you? Someone who did what you did?"

Ydwin blinked and adjusted her glasses. "No," she said, cautious. "But given what you've told me, and what we've discovered, I would assume that any such person was murdered, and any records of them destroyed or hidden."

"Exactly," Kit said, and her arms shifted aimlessly, without something to hold. "As far as we _know_ , you are completely unique in the world, so you can't start making assumptions about that." She must not have noticed how she sounded, then, or else she wouldn't continue to say things that left Ydwin feeling distinctly unbalanced. Kit was passingly conscientious to those in her company, as a rule. "Maybe there's a different end for you," Kit continued, something fierce and far away in her gaze now. "We can figure it out. And we're going to make sure it doesn't come for a while yet."

The ship creaked, and the cat scratched at the wood of the cabin floor, somewhere underneath the bed. "We?" Ydwin asked.

Kit's demeanor flipped like a tossed pire, as if she came rushing back to the present and found it unwieldy. She shifted on her feet. "If you want," she amended, uncertain. "I mean, you've been helping me? So I thought--" She stopped, brows furrowing deep.

"Is there something wrong with me?" Ydwin asked delicately.

Kit looked stricken for one long moment, before her face cleared abruptly, her thoughts catching up. "Oh, fuck you," she said, sighing heavily, and a corner of Ydwin's mouth was drawn irresistibly upward. "You know what I mean."

"I do," Ydwin said evenly. But it was strange, to be _offered_ something, after a lifetime of proving and clawing and taking. Exchanging favors was hardly foreign, but Ydwin knew it was far more than that, could hear it in the hum of Kit's thoughts. She considered it as carefully as any complex theoretical conundrum, lapsing into silence, and Kit didn't press, only stood there with minimal twitching, not quite comfortable with stillness but more than capable of waiting. "Perhaps it is something we could turn our attention to," Ydwin said finally, "after more pressing matters are dealt with."

It wasn't quite a commitment, but it was an opened door, and Kit smiled. "Okay," she said, like that was that, like that was enough, and then her smile took on a crooked edge, as she turned and circled back around the bed. "It's nice to know you were worried about me, by the way."

"You hardly leave me a choice," Ydwin said, dry. "I'm beginning to think you simply require risk-taking to live." That Kit was something of a thrill-seeker was obvious, but oddly enough, Ydwin found it more admirable than otherwise, on most occasions.

Ydwin made no comment on the fact that it wasn't only herself who'd been worried. That Kit had taken that risk for a reason. The words were stuck in her throat once more, and perhaps the Void's chill hadn't quite departed yet, after all. But she didn't put as much effort as she could have into keeping it out of her immediate thoughts.

The Watcher would have done so for anyone, Ydwin reasoned more privately, like one last bastion of rationality against the needless complications of becoming too involved. Kit would have done the same for Vatnir, had Rymrgand's hunger been focused there.

"Again," Kit said, crouching down and critically eyeing the thin gap beneath the bed, " _you_ can't lecture me about that." But her thoughts ran warmer than the Void, full of a determination to see her undead cat get a bath, full of a steady kind of certainty that some risks were more than worth taking. Her attention was only superficially split. Her thoughts were still turned wholly towards Ydwin, curious and always willing to venture farther, if invited.

She would have done the same for anyone, Ydwin thought. But Kit's attention, now... that was a different story entirely, and it was strange and not unpleasant, to be caught within that recursive loop of the Watcher's tireless contemplation.

" _I_ put years of planning into every risk I take," Ydwin said and left it at that, as Kit stretched an arm under the bed with the tenacity of a shark's reaching jaws and met hissing resistance.

It had hardly been years, in this case, but Kit was quick to think on her feet, and perhaps Ydwin could follow suit, just this once.

**Author's Note:**

> Me in every playthrough: Neriscyrlas, please come with.  
> Neriscyrlas: No. ❤️


End file.
